prasantrin

Ask the schools to put you in contact with recent alum. They may direct you to people with the most positive experiences, but if you ask the right questions, you should be able to get a good all-round view of the school.

@Ronnie--I'd join you, for sure! I love the idea, and am still very jealous that I didn't get to go to the one in Chicago. @santo_grace--Not again!! You tell your brother that Mt. Ranier will still be there next year, so he should postpone his climb! @Marmish--I was hoping you'd still make it out, baby and all! Darn! One month isn't too early for a baby to be exposed to gluttonous eating, is it? All they do is eat when they're not sleeping, anyway, so your little one will fit right in!

Your best bet is to ask your doctor for a bibliography of studies regarding grapefruit and statins. I'm sure he would be a much better resource than a bunch of non-doctors on a food forum. But should you choose to believe the internet is a better resource, take a look at this thread started by Gifted Gourmet. docsconz, who plays a doctor in real life, chimes in.

Nuri sardines packed in olive oil with chile. Very tasty.

My Chinese relatives in LV like Emperor" Garden. From their website they seem to specialise in Sichuan, but I only remember having Cantonese-style dishes. This was a few years ago, so I may be wrong. They do have private rooms available and tables with lazy susans. http://www.emperorgarden.com/banquet.htm

I'm a lazy cook, so I really like probe thermometers because I can not worry about something I'm cooking and just wait for the thermometer to beep and let me know it's done. I'd like to extend my laziness to baked goods. Over here, jackal stated the ideal internal temperature of fruitcake is 90C (he writes 180C, but later revises it to just below boiling) or 200F. Yeast breads are generally considered done at about 200F, too (lots of references on the internet, plus I'm sure it's been mentioned here, too). Is that the standard temperature of doneness for all baked goods? I'm not thinking so much of cookies or other small things, but for example: pound cake? quick breads? Chiffon cake? Layer cakes (chocolate, vanilla, whatever)?

Ah. I thought she had already stated her range of dates, but maybe her plans have changed.

Dunno, but my rice cooker is almost the same model (mine has a timer). This person must be my brother from another mother.

Make a tart with creme fraiche filling, or plain cheesecake will do. Mix some supremed grapefruit (diced or whole, depending on how much work you want to do later) with a bit of sugar and maybe some fresh mint and let it sit for a bit. Top cheesecake/tart with the grapefruit. If it's diced, just plop it on, but if you have whole segments, then you can arrange it in concentric circles. with both pink and white grapefruit. You could also top the grapefruit with sugar and then put it under the broiler to caramelize the sugar. That makes a very nice tart. This is actually prettier with both pink and white grapefruit, but whatever floats your boat!

I don't have concrete plans to go, but is there any chance instead of a Chinese meal that something like Middle Eastern or Mexican could be done? It might be nice to have an "ethnic" meal that's not Chinese (especially for those of us who eat a lot of Chinese). I'm also interested in Mallorca, but haven't heard much about the food quality there. Good Spanish food is hard to find, so if it's good, I'd welcome a visit there. Nancy--do you think it will be the last weekend of July or the first weekend of August?

I don't think it's racist either, but think about it this way... if an old white couple in Babbo were overheard saying "African Spaghetti" about a black chef while making an "Ewww-Face" there'd be a shit storm... But it wasn't said because of the ethnicity of the person/people cooking, but because of the quality/style of the food. I was unaware “Caucasian” was synonymous with “poor quality.” Considering the context, I've never met a Caucasian cook who made better dim sum than a Chinese cook. How many dim sum places do you frequent that have awesome Caucasian cooks in the kitchen? For that matter, given the choice between entering a dim sum place filled with Chinese patrons, or a dim sum place filled with Caucasian patrons, which would you choose? Which would you assume is more "authentic"? And I noticed you ignored the "style" half of what I wrote. And the part about the misuse of the word "racism".

I don't think it's racist either, but think about it this way... if an old white couple in Babbo were overheard saying "African Spaghetti" about a black chef while making an "Ewww-Face" there'd be a shit storm... But it wasn't said because of the ethnicity of the person/people cooking, but because of the quality/style of the food.

If a comment like "causasian dim sum" is racist, then pretty much everyone who has said "You know a [fill in ethnicity] restaurant is good because it's filled with [fill in ethnicity] people" is racist. It may show a prejudice, but it is certainly not racist. [rant]As someone who has experienced racism, I find it very offensive when people throw that term around lightly. [/rant] This comment about the episode from a food blogger is far more indicative of prejudice Dale is Filipino. But you know, we all look alike. [edited to fix poor editing]

What kind of pesto did you make? Looks heavy on the garlic! Yum!

That is not a Metric Recipe, that is an antiquated American unit converted to a Metric equivalant. If you look at every ingredient in the Metricated Recipe you will see none are exact conversions, the recipe as a whole is about 10% larger than the American version. You did not go through the whole instructable, or else you would see how and why of what I am doing to get the final Metric Recipe. So, yes 500 g does relate to ONE POUND, as does one American cup at 237 mL is relate to a Metric cup at 250 mL. Don't the British also use pounds for weight? And if it's still being used somewhere in the world, by millions of people no less, then I would think it could hardly be called "antiquated". 454grams is one pound. Not 500 grams. It doesn't make sense to me to scale a recipe up (and did you scale up the baking pan, as well?) by 10% just to accommodate a number you've randomly chosen as being related to 1 pound. And if you're using 500g to represent 1 pound and 250mL to represent 1 cup, you're still screwing up a lot of bakers since 500 grams is 10% more than 1 pound, and 250mL is only 5% more than 1 US cup. Like I said, if people are using scales, numbers like 437g or 454g or whatever really don't make that much of a difference. I've used recipes originally written with metric weights, and they used oddball numbers, too. Like 104g of eggs, etc. It was a mis-type. Surely you can empathize with mis-types. If you are asking this question of me, perhaps you can clarify, becuase I have no idea what you're trying to say. And perhaps you can answer my earlier question, which was, what is the point of your program?

Three weeks is a long stretch! End of April/beginning of May is a difficult time because of hanami, so a lot of places to stay will be booked. Look into booking your hotels/ryokan/apartment now if you can. If you need suggestions, pm me and I'll send you some info I have. Depachika are great for prepared foods, but they do tend to be on the expensive side. Not as expensive as eating out, but still pricy. Your standard neighbourhood grocery store (if you're doing apartment rental) will be cheaper. There are tons of take-out coffee places in Japan, from Starbucks to Tully's to Illy. Tons, especially in metropolitan areas. If you're just getting coffee or tea to go, you won't have a problem. Although a little more expensive per cup (and not very environmentally friendly), you can also get 1-cup coffee filter things (coffee and paper filter in one!) to make individual cups of coffee. Those are great for travelling as pretty much every hotel room will have a hot water thermos. I don't know how much you want to spend on transportation, but I'd go north to Hokkaido (or at least Aomori) for seafood. Then I'd make my way down, passing through places like Hida-Takayama and Nagoya on the way to Kansai. I'd spend at least 5 days in Kansai since you've got Kobe, Osaka, and Kyoto to cover. (If you had to skip one of those, I'd skip Kobe although my favourite okonomiyaki place is in Kobe :-) ). Then go down south to Hiroshima and Fukuoka (plus Nagasaki). Nagasaki isn't great for food, but it might be historically of interest to you because of the Dutch connection, not to mention the Atomic Bomb Museum and all those great pottery places like Sasebo. If you're thinking of getting a JR rail pass, you might also want to consider night buses. They're cheaper than taking the train, plus you save on accommodations. If you're interested, pm me and I'll send you the link to the website I use (which is in both English and Japanese, though the Japanese site gives you more options).

Clay extruders are stronger than cookies presses. Might want to take a look at those.

Virbila rated Mina XIV's desserts quite poorly. I don't know if it affected his job, but the pastry chef of Mina XIV at the time was Jordan Kahn, chef/partner of Red Medicine. ETA--when I read the blurb on Red Medicine's website this morning, her phone number had already been removed. At this time (4:12pm, central time), the entry has been removed in its entirety. Unfortunately for Red Medicine, the entry (including the picture) has been reproduced many times over online, so they cannot claim it never happened.

He uses 1 teaspoon according to the post I found. Why? That's what Cook's Illustrated is for . For this type of dough, which I might call "excellent at home but still NY style pizza dough, this recipe worked just great. Ya, but they rate recipes according to their taste buds, not mine. Plus it's a good excuse to eat more pizza!

Off the top of my head, the recipe I referred to is higher than that, maybe 70%. I looked it up. He uses 70%. Must get some nice bubbles in that dough. He uses diastatic malt and 1 tsp yeast, while albiston uses only 1/4 teaspoon yeast, some olive oil, and makes the dough in 2 parts (the lengthy rise is after mixing the first part of the dough, then the dough can be used immediately after the second additions, or it can be refrigerated again). Might be interesting to do a comparison between the two recipes.

And somewhere buried in the Pizza thread is a virtually no knead recipe from Sam Kinsey that also turns out great results, the key being long refrigerator fermentation. With albiston's dough, it's not only long refrigerator fermentation, but also higher hydration. At a minimum, it's about 62%, but you can take it higher. If you look at some of the better neapolitan pizza places, they use a lot of flour to stretch out the dough which indicates a very wet dough. The CI recipe, to me, looks quite a bit drier, and the crust doesn't have those lovely bubbles that neapolitan crusts get.

Former member albiston had an excellent recipe for a Neapolitan-style dough. Even without the necessary kneading (I didn't have a stand mixer and it was a very sticky dough, so I didn't bother kneading), it turned out a crust very similar to the best Neapolitan crusts I've tried.

How much longer will you be staying in Beirut? I don't want your reports to ever end! I'm thinking of moving there eventually (or the UAE), but that won't be for years. I need to live vicariously through you until then! Why do you think Gaucho isn't for tourists? (just asking, not arguing)

The name of the cookie? Or do you mean the book is actually Hershey's Kidsnacks and people were searching for Betty Crocker for Kids for nothing?

Your pictures reminds me of a story, which might be funny were it not a little sad. My friend's mother was suffering from dementia, and one day my friend's sister came home to find their mother had eaten an entire box of curry roux, thinking it was chocolate. She didn't even realize it wasn't chocolate as she was eating it. So be careful of the box of Baker's chocolates; you might confuse it for a box of curry one day! (I know you won't, it just reminded me of my friend when I saw the curry and chocolate side-by-side.)